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Lifting, Spinning, Crockpot Cooking

Lifting and Spinning 
It seems like just about everyone is experiencing super cold weather. Our average this time of year is supposed to be low 50's. On my walk into the office this morning, the wind chill was 12 degrees. Let's just say I dropped quite a few f-bombs while walking as quickly as humanly possible for the 3 block walk! I actually wore tights under my pants and my Under Armour compression running top under my turtleneck.

I think cold temps not only zap heat, they zap motivation. It's hard to want to change into not-as-warm workout clothes for starters. I think it takes longer to warm up even. That'll be my excuse for how weak I was feeling with my biceps workout I did at lunch. I guess when I look at the number of reps done though, that should be the true indicator of why I thought I was struggling. Today was STS Meso 2, Disc 21.

Dumbbell curls - 12,10,8,12,10,8 (starting at 70% of 1RM and increasing by 5% for 10, another 5% for 8 then start over)
Incline curls with rotation at top of move - 12,10,TF
Reverse curls - 12,10,TF

When I went to grab my water glass, I had doubts of being able to safely hold it ;-)

After work I ran home to get dinner started before changing and meeting Jason at the gym for spin class. My legs were actually still rather sore from Saturday's leg workout. I was really thinking I would never make it through class. But after about 10 minutes in, my legs started to cooperate and I pushed on through. I was a sweaty mess. 

Crockpot Night
As I mentioned, I ran home to get dinner started before the gym. Because it is so darn cold, soup was the only thing that sounded good. I had really though I was going to make Taco Salad Bowls, but that just doesn't sound good right about now. So, I decided to try an easy Crockpot Vegetable Soup.

I don't use the crockpot very often. Ours is ancient and tends to work on two heat settings: off and hot as hell. So I figured the hot as hell setting would cook everything in about a 2-hour time frame. I used frozen veggies instead of raw so I knew that would help speed up the cooking time as well.

I hate to even call this a recipe because I pretty much just tossed in no-sodium vegetable stock, diced tomatoes, frozen veggies, beans, leftover roasted potatoes, and spices into the crockpot, turned it on, and walked away. When I got in from the gym, I added in about 2-3 tbsp of tomato paste and let it continue to cook while we both got cleaned up.
 

This worked out perfectly. There was barely any mess, it was pretty much ready when we walked in the door, and it hit the spot on a cold night.

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